Argentina - IOM Argentina and the Refugees and Migrants Support Commission (CAREF by its Spanish acronym), an NGO working to defend the human rights of migrants and refugees, have agreed to research the situation of Dominican migrants in Argentina.

The new research, on the socio-demographic characteristics of Dominican migrants in Argentina, with a special focus on their participation in the labor market, housing and documentation, will update similar research carried by IOM and CAREF in 2002/2003.

At that time, the research revealed that Dominican women who began arriving in Argentina in the late 1990s, were facing serious difficulties entering the labour market in traditional sectors such as domestic work, home care for aging adults and children, and in the service sector.

This made them easy prey to human traffickers and pimps and explained the disproportionate number of Dominican women involved in the sex industry, either as independent sex workers, members of prostitution networks, or victims of human trafficking.

In the past decade, migration from the Dominican Republic to Argentina has continued, but with many changes, including an increase in the number of men.  The 2010 Census reported a total of 5,600 Dominican citizens in the country – 1,400 of them male. Dominican women are now also employed in small retail businesses and in the beauty industry.

But difficulties in obtaining all of the papers needed to regularize their residence under the Special Regularization Regime for Foreigners of Dominican Nationality, as well as their exploitation by pimps and human traffickers, still make many Dominicans living in Argentina extremely vulnerable.

The new research, funded by IOM, will include in-depth interviews with undocumented Dominican men and women living in Argentina, and will shed light on how they got there, including whether they employed the services of migrant smugglers or were victims of human trafficking.

For more information please contact
Mariana Beheran at IOM Buenos Aires
Tel: +54 11 4815-1035/4811-9148/4813-9714
Email: mbeheran@iom.int